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There is a growing clamor for new congressional inquiries into how the
Immigration and Naturalization Service recklessly releases illegal
aliens like sniper suspect Lee Malvo-and then watches them disappear to
commit brutal crimes against American citizens.

Please, no more hearings. What we need now is action from the White
House, not another redundant confab on Capitol Hill.

A year ago this month, the investigations subcommittee of the Senate
Governmental Affairs Committee convened an eerily prescient hearing on
exactly the kinds of policies that led to illegal alien Malvo's quick
and easy release-despite the Border Patrol's clear warning that Malvo
and his mother were "likely to abscond."

"If the Border Patrol decides to detain a person or set a bond to help
assure that a person shows up at the hearing, the INS deportation office
can revise that decision and order the person released on a lower bond
or on his or her own recognizance. To be released on your own
recognizance means that you are released on your promise that you will
appear at the scheduled hearing. There is no bond.

"[T]he Border Patrol and the INS release on their own recognizance a
significant number of people who are arrested for illegal entry, even
though it is clear that most won't show up at their removal hearing.
That means that most people who get caught and arrested for illegal
entry.are allowed to move at will in this country with no constraints
other than a written instruction to appear at a hearing that is likely
to result in their removal from this country, and that is absurd."

Next, Sen. Levin demanded answers. He asked Michael Pearson, the INS's
executive associate commissioner for field operations, to tell him how
many illegal aliens released on their own recognizance after being
apprehended by the Border Patrol fail to show up for hearings. Pearson's
reply:

"I don't know."

When Sen. Levin asked Pearson to simply tell him how many illegal aliens
arrested in 2001 in one region of the country --the Detroit sector of
the Border Patrol-- had actually shown up for their hearings, Levin was
told:

"The INS doesn't know."

Sen. Levin pressed Pearson on the lack of any INS requirement to conduct
criminal background checks on illegal aliens before releasing them on
their own recognizance. "Do you know in how many cases where people are
released on their own requirement, approximately, there is no criminal
background check?" Pearson's reply:

"I do not know, Senator."

Sen. Levin tried again. He asked Pearson: "[Y]ou don't know in what
percentage of the cases where people are released on their recognizance
that there is a criminal background check[?]" Pearson responded:

"Senator, I don't have that data. No, I do not."

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) noted that even after the INS is alerted to
no-shows, "INS agents are not routinely sent out to locate the illegal
aliens who fail to appear." The catch-and-release scheme is also
available to asylum seekers and to illegal aliens who have no verifiable
identities, addresses, or contact information as required by law. In
1999, some INS district offices released nearly 80 percent of the asylum
seekers pending their asylum hearing; as many as one-third of these
asylum seekers failed to appear for their asylum hearings, according to
Sen. Collins.

In addition, the INS continues its "voluntary departure" program,
letting thousands of illegal aliens go free with timid instructions to
leave the country within 30 days-without any process for verifying
whether or not they actually leave.

Border Patrol agent Mark Hall, who works along the Detroit sector, cut
to the chase: "When illegal aliens are released, we send a disturbing
message. The aliens quickly pass along the word about how easy it is to
enter this country illegally and remain here. This practice is
devastating to a sound border enforcement strategy."

Nine months later, 11 people lay dead and 3 gravely wounded after the
release of illegal alien Lee Malvo. The know-nothings at INS are running
for cover.